Agile Summer Camp 2008

Nerds, Woods, and deep conversations about Agile Development. What could be better? This was just an excellent idea. Thanks to Chris Woodruff for organizing this for us! The environment allowed everyone to relax, unplug, and concentrate on the topics being discussed in the open spaces format. Topics discussed were: Agile 101, Selling Agile, Complexity in Software, Agile Planning with Deadlines, and many other impromptu discussions over s'mores. There were a couple of major things that I took away from this weekend.

One of the biggest selling points for agile is its constant visibility for the customer and management. I realize now that for some scenarios (Not the one that i'm currently in) it's not the improved quality of software that convinces management to implement Agile methodologies. Sometimes, it's the constant feedback that the customer gets from the developers.

Although many developers are dogmatic about certain techniques and frameworks, the Agile way is to use the simplest method until you find yourself in need of the additional complexity. If what you're doing works and you do not feel pain, don't let someone tell you that you're wrong for not using a dependency injection framework. You never really know for sure if you're going to need something.

Sadly I will not be making it to the Simple Design and Testing conference next weekend, but after Devlink, and Agile Summer Camp, I have plenty to marinate on for a while.